Israel Business

This week, Bezeq sold the classified ads portal Yad2 to Germany’s Axel Springer Digital for 788 million shekels. Now, Israel's largest telecommunications company is likely to pay out dividends of over 1.3 billion shekels in the first half of 2014, according to a source speaking to Reuters.

In a sign of deepening relationships between Israel and Canada, the Chief Scientist of Israel’s Ministry of Economy announced investment in three new joint research projects in the field of energy together with Canadian partners.

While much attention has been given to Israeli start-ups sold on to multinational technology companies, there are also a considerable number of growth companies who have built themselves up and are ready to trade publicly rather than run for high-profile exits, according to a new study by IVC Research Center.

While Wall Street hasn’t been too healthy in the last week, with an overall drop in NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S&P 500, several Israeli high-tech companies have outperformed the market, earning employees big profits.

Supermarkets in Israel are on edge after a recent market survey. According to Nielsen data obtained by the Israeli business daily Globes, sales by Shufersal, Mega, and Coop Israel has dropped by 3.2% from January 2013 to January 2014.

Reports and surveys point to a significant salary gap between men and women in the Israeli workforce. After carefully examining the socioeconomic status of women for 14 years, the National Insurance Institute found that men earn 17% more than women when working at the same position, with similar skill sets and experience. They also discovered that 2% more women live under the poverty level than men.